Gforce 560Ti and a Core 2 Duo worth it to upgrade?

[malkuth]

My system right now is

Intel Core 2 DUO E8400 3.0 GZ
6 Gigs Ram
Win 7 64 Bit
Nvidia GTX260
Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V

Is it worth the update for the GTX 560TI or is that processor going to hold back any noticeable performance increase?

Oh 23 Inch Wide screen play it at native 1920x1080

 

[toyota]

in general its going to hold you back in a few games enough to where you see little to no improvement. most games will certainly be a bit faster and allow you to crank more graphical settings though especially at 1920x1080. personally I think its time to upgrade that cpu if you really want to get the most out of your games and fully push a higher end gpu. at the very least you need to oc that cpu by a bit.

 

[malkuth]

I can use easytune 6 to overclock to 3.6 GHZ about the safest setting im willing to use playing with overclocking it seems.

 

[toyota]

I can use easytune 6 to overclock to 3.6 GHZ about the safest setting im willing to use playing with overclocking it seems.

3.6 is a nice easy oc and that will certainly help push a gtx560 ti. if that's the factory heatsink then your cpu might get a bit toasty though.

 

[malkuth]

3.6 is a nice easy oc and that will certainly help push a gtx560 ti. if that's the factory heatsink then your cpu might get a bit toasty though.

Had to look back in my history but I installed a
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186134

Back when I built this rig. I never installed it with the factory heat sink. Don't know why I did that but I did lol.

 

[toyota]

Had to look back in my history but I installed a
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186134

Back when I built this rig. I never installed it with the factory heat sink. Don't know why I did that but I did lol.

yeah I had that cooler for my E8500 that I ran at 3.8 and it did a great job.

 

[happy medium]

Intel Core 2 DUO E8400 3.0 GZ

After seeing BF3 make use of 6 cores, I no longer recommend using a dual core cpu if you are gonna buy/play newer games and wanna upgrade your graphics card.

If you wanna play newer or upcomming games grab a quad core cpu first since a gtx260 is not all that slow. If you wanna boost some of your current games ,I guess just upgrading you gpu and overclocking the cpu will be ok, for now.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Get the 560Ti. You will see a large improvement. Later when you can upgrade to i5 SB and keep the card.

 

[Spjut]

I'd get a new CPU first, more and more games want quad cores

People here may regard me as being cheap, but I'd keep the GTX260 until the new GPU series have come out

 

[Termie]

in general its going to hold you back in a few games enough to where you see little to no improvement. most games will certainly be a bit faster and allow you to crank more graphical settings though especially at 1920x1080. personally I think its time to upgrade that cpu if you really want to get the most out of your games and fully push a higher end gpu. at the very least you need to oc that cpu by a bit.

I actually think the GTX260 is the perfect match for an e8400. Yes, you might see a slight improvement with a newer card, but it won't be worth it. Even with a big overclock, I don't think it could properly drive a 560Ti in newer games. The GTX260 is faster than an HD5770 and pretty close to the GTX460-768, which I run with my e8400@3.3. It never comes close to 90% GPU usage. You should test your GTX260 with Rivatuner to see what type of GPU usage you have while gaming. If it's near 100%, you could potentially benefit from an upgrade, but if it's well below 100%, you're already CPU-limited.

By the way, Toyota, you upgraded from an e8500 to a 2500k, but downgraded from a GTX260 to an 8600gt. Waiting on a new card, or not gaming anymore?

 

[Bill Brasky]

After seeing BF3 make use of 6 cores, I no longer recommend using a dual core cpu if you are gonna buy/play newer games and wanna upgrade your graphics card.

If you wanna play newer or upcomming games grab a quad core cpu first since a gtx260 is not all that slow. If you wanna boost some of your current games ,I guess just upgrading you gpu and overclocking the cpu will be ok, for now.

This. Newer games will require a quad for good performance.

 

[Red Hawk]

That is, a quad core or a dual core with hyperthreading.

 

[toyota]

I actually think the GTX260 is the perfect match for an e8400. Yes, you might see a slight improvement with a newer card, but it won't be worth it. Even with a big overclock, I don't think it could properly drive a 560Ti in newer games. The GTX260 is faster than an HD5770 and pretty close to the GTX460-768, which I run with my e8400@3.3. It never comes close to 90% GPU usage. You should test your GTX260 with Rivatuner to see what type of GPU usage you have while gaming. If it's near 100%, you could potentially benefit from an upgrade, but if it's well below 100%, you're already CPU-limited.

By the way, Toyota, you upgraded from an e8500 to a 2500k, but downgraded from a GTX260 to an 8600gt. Waiting on a new card, or not gaming anymore?

I ran into some finance issues while upgrading so I had to put off getting a new video card for a few weeks. it is funny to see only 125 watts being used while gaming.

 

[bryanW1995]

I actually think the GTX260 is the perfect match for an e8400. Yes, you might see a slight improvement with a newer card, but it won't be worth it. Even with a big overclock, I don't think it could properly drive a 560Ti in newer games. The GTX260 is faster than an HD5770 and pretty close to the GTX460-768, which I run with my e8400@3.3. It never comes close to 90% GPU usage. You should test your GTX260 with Rivatuner to see what type of GPU usage you have while gaming. If it's near 100%, you could potentially benefit from an upgrade, but if it's well below 100%, you're already CPU-limited.

By the way, Toyota, you upgraded from an e8500 to a 2500k, but downgraded from a GTX260 to an 8600gt. Waiting on a new card, or not gaming anymore?

Gtx 460-768 is a pretty decent upgrade over a gtx 260. I upgraded from a overclocked gtx 260 core 216 with the core oc'd to 655 to a gtx 460-768 about 9 months ago, and iirc the fps boost was about 30%. I wasn't cpu-limited, however, since I'm using the card on an i7 @ 4.0.

 

[toyota]

Gtx 460-768 is a pretty decent upgrade over a gtx 260. I upgraded from a overclocked gtx 260 core 216 with the core oc'd to 655 to a gtx 460-768 about 9 months ago, and iirc the fps boost was about 30%. I wasn't cpu-limited, however, since I'm using the card on an i7 @ 4.0.

really depends on the game but overall a gtx460 768mb is a minuscule upgrade over an overclocked gtx260. in this techrport review it was actually barely any better than the gtx260. in fact it was even slower at 2560 for Borderlands. http://techreport.com/articles.x/19242/11

also for games like GTA 4 and Clear Sky I would have actually had to reduce my settings with a gtx460 768mb since I was already using basically all of my 896mb of vram in those games.

 

[Termie]

I ran into some finance issues while upgrading so I had to put off getting a new video card for a few weeks. it is funny to see only 125 watts being used while gaming.

Got it...you're definitely not CPU-limited at this point! Good luck with the upgrade.

really depends on the game but overall a gtx460 768mb is a minuscule upgrade over an overclocked gtx260. in this techrport review it was actually barely any better than the gtx260. in fact it was even slower at 2560 for Borderlands. http://techreport.com/articles.x/19242/11

also for games like GTA 4 and Clear Sky I would have actually had to reduce my settings with a gtx460 768mb since I was already using basically all of my 896mb of vram in those games.

Those Borderlands numbers are pretty funny. Definitely a game that works better on nVidia. The GTX260 basically matches an HD5850.

As an aside, Borderlands 2 was just announced: http://www.borderlands2.com/

 

[malkuth]

Gah the other upgrade option always drives me up the wall. Priced out some AMd Chips and some I5 chips and basically I can get a AMD X2-4 3.5 and a decent MB and ram for about 3 hundred bucks.

Or I could spend about 100 bucks more and get an I5 3.3 MB and Ram (both builds would be 8 Gigs)

Of course I could also wait to see if the I5 go down when the new AMD comes out.. But lets face it.. That DUO chip I have now still goes for 180 bucks and I think I payed 240 for it 2 years ago. WTF?

 

[malkuth]

So I decided to make this purchase and stay with Intel since I loved the DUO 2 I had all these years and it never failed me.

Intel I5 3.3 Mghz 2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072
Gigabyte GA Z6BP-DS3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128520
8 Gigs Gskill Ripsaw Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231445
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065

And I figure I can get a pretty good penny for my old system if I split it up and sell it off The old MB and Ram And CPU and Cooler that is.

 

[Termie]

So I decided to make this purchase and stay with Intel since I loved the DUO 2 I had all these years and it never failed me.

Intel I5 3.3 Mghz 2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072
Gigabyte GA Z6BP-DS3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128520
8 Gigs Gskill Ripsaw Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231445
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065

And I figure I can get a pretty good penny for my old system if I split it up and sell it off The old MB and Ram And CPU and Cooler that is.

Wow, you really went "all in"! You liked our advice, I take it.

You will not be disappointed with the 2500k. It's the modern day e8400. Relatively affordable and very fast. Are you still going to get the 560Ti or did you decide to only upgrade the CPU platform?

By the way, I've been reading mixed reviews of Gigabyte's recent boards. Might want to get some opinions on that z68 boards on the motherboards forum. Great choice of ram (very nice price!), and the cooler is quite adequate for the 2500k as well.

 

[toyota]

I don't think that cooler is going to clear the heatsinks on that ram. I still cannot figure out why in hell they have placed the memory slots so close to the cpu on 1155 sockets.

 

[Termie]

I don't think that cooler is going to clear the heatsinks on that ram.

He should be fine if he uses the second and fourth ram slots. He also has the option of raising the fan slightly, if he wants to use the first slot. I did that on mine when I was using the first slot for a while.

 

[toyota]

He should be fine if he uses the second and fourth ram slots. He also has the option of raising the fan slightly, if he wants to use the first slot. I did that on mine when I was using the first slot for a while.

well I asked about that and MSI has said that on socket 1155 the first and third slots from the cpu are the ones I should use if only running two sticks.

 

[malkuth]

Wow, you really went "all in"! You liked our advice, I take it.

You will not be disappointed with the 2500k. It's the modern day e8400. Relatively affordable and very fast. Are you still going to get the 560Ti or did you decide to only upgrade the CPU platform?

By the way, I've been reading mixed reviews of Gigabyte's recent boards. Might want to get some opinions on that z68 boards on the motherboards forum. Great choice of ram (very nice price!), and the cooler is quite adequate for the 2500k as well.

Ya been using Gigabyte for last 2 builds and like them. I did notice some say that they had an adnormal amount of DOA. So its hit or miss it seems right now. Hopefully I luck out. had to keep the prices down a bit to keep in budget and yes still get the Video card also. Just waiting for the next pay check to get that added. Only other board in that price range was something I never bought before ASROCK.

This time I will OC this right out of the box and hopefully at least hit that low 4s everyone is talking about. Seems all I have to do is use the multplier which is simple enough.

Actually this build was cheaper then when I bought my DUO 2 3.3 and MB combo. But I went with a MB that could have the Two Video cards thing and payed more for something I didn't need. I will never have 2 vid cards so no need for all that fancy stuff.. And if Overclocking is just as easy as setting the Multplier then Im all set there too.

 

[Mir96TA]

Hmmmm
YOu have a Win 7 right ?
Why don't you use the Windows Performance Monitor and play games.
See (if) where and how often your CPU usage goes over 90 % .....
Cause if it is not hitting 90% or more, then you do not need a CPU upgrade.

 

[malkuth]

well I asked about that and MSI has said that on socket 1155 the first and third slots from the cpu are the ones I should use if only running two sticks.

Ya just noticed that now that I look hopefully the last 2 slot will be fine to use, guess I will have to wait and see.

Looking at all the Gigabytes that have this chipset they all have the same layout and read a few of the reviews on the higher priced ones and have not noticed anyone saying it will be a tight fit.. Maybe it will be that fan is huge from the movie they have of it installing.